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Advice on duck preparation

corey.schwanz

Hello! I'm ordering a whole duck online to prepare it for a romantic Valentine's dinner. This is also the first time I have ever cooked duck myself so I'm trying to be as prepared as possible. I'm going to break down the bird into 4 sections:

Breasts for meal 1
Leg/Thigh confit for meal 2
Remaining meat and organs for Pate
Carcass for stock

I am planning on doing the breasts first for the express purpose of rendering out as much fat as possible to use for the confit later. Does more fat render out with a traditional sear + roast, or a pre-sear/sous-vide/post-sear?

I have read that doing confit sous vide requires much less fat due to a vacuum environment, but I don't know if doing the breasts sous vide will get me that.

Anything else that I need to consider? Definite Do's or Don'ts?

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Comments

wolfiegirl

I don't believe you will obtain enough duck fat from searing the breasts to confit the legs & thighs. Typically you only get about 3 tablespoons, give or take, from searing two breasts. While you don't need a whole pot full of fat using the sous vide method for your confit, you will need substantially more than 3 or 4 tablespoons. You should have enough fat to thoroughly cover the legs and thighs. What I would suggest is to break down your duck reserving the breasts, legs & thighs first. I might be wrong, but I don't think you'll have enough meat on the carcass for pate. Not saying you won't but don't be surprised because once you remove the breasts and legs, there's really not much meat left. But whatever is left of the carcass, place it on a rack and oven roast it low and slow. The fat will slowly melt away into your roasting pan and the bones will be nicely roasted, giving your stock a much richer flavor. Hopefully, again depending on the size duck you have, might give you just enough rendered fat for the confit.

The other way to go is to buy a tub of duck fat. Don't know from which site you bought your duck but here are a couple of online sources for duck fat.

https://www.farmfreshduck.com/17-duck-fat

http://www.dartagnan.com/duck-fat/product/PENDF002-1.html

As to the confit, I LOVE this recipe for duck legs. The only adjustment I've made to it is change the time and temp to 149° for 24 hours. You will absolutely love the results!

http://www.greatbritishchefs.com/how-to-cook/how-to-make-duck-confit-sous-vide

One other option is to use some other oil instead of duck fat for your confit. Personally I would splurge and buy the duck fat. It freezes beautifully, lasts a very long time in the freezer. And also, remember when you're done using the duck fat, while it is in liquid form, you can run it through a fine sieve, put it in a freezer safe container and use it again and again.

FrankM_3301

I agree with a lot of what byrdie writes. I do think there is plenty of fat to be rendered out of one duck to confit its legs and thighs using sous vide. Firstly, as you point out, souse vide confit uses much less fat. Secondly, I routinely get way more than a couple of tablespoons of fat to render from 1 duck breast. However, you won't render fat cooking the breast sous vide. You will need to pan sear or roast for that (after carefully scoring the skin/fat side of the breast without cutting into the meat). Also, if you trim the fat and skin from the carcass, chop it up, and put it in a pan over very low heat you can render lots of fat. Don't let it boil or cook too fast. It might take a few hours.

tshewman

Easiest is to remove the skin and cook separately. Breasts-I prefer a brine, then cook at 60C for 6 hours.

For legs:

9 star anise

5 juniper berries

2 bay leaves

2 cinnamon sticks

1 sprig thyme

zest of half an orange

zest of half a lemon

5 black peppercorns

60g salt

30g sugar

100g duck fat

40g cherry or maple wood chips

Grind the spices, zests and peppercorns to a powder and rub on to the legs. Place in a covered container, and refrigerate for 24 hours. Cover the legs evenly with the sea salt and place back in the refrigerator for another 8 hours.

Rinse the legs and pat dry. Add 50g duck fat per leg and cook sv for 48hrs and 65C.

Remove the legs and reserve the fat.

Place a cake rack inside a pan and scatter wood chips.

Cover and place over high heat (or ignite with a torch). When the chips begin to burn and smoke, remove from the heat, quickly remove the lid and place the legs, skin-side up, on to the cake tray. Cover and leave to smoke for 30 minutes. Remove the legs and refrigerate until ready to use.

I also remove the skin to coat the bottom of the pan and top with stuffing or filler. Alternatively, dehydrate skin further until crisp (see Nick's Maltose syrup blend for what to use to coat to finish).

This works with Duck, goose and Turkey (although I use lower temps for Turkey). This is essentially Hestons recipe.

wolfiegirl

Speaking of duck stock, I was EXTREMELY excited when I saw these....

https://www.farmfreshduck.com/duck-feet/106-duck-feet-40-lb-case.html

When I make chicken stock (aka chicken jello) I use any bones or bits I've saved from previous chickens but the bulk of the source of chicken are chicken paws (feet). Thus when I saw duck paws (feet), I could envision the richest, jello-i-est duck stock ever produced. They also have about every part of a duck you can imagine that you just can't find in stores. You wanted pate? They have bags of duck livers. It's pretty much Duck Heaven.

#duck

Minh_Huynh_48807

What?.. stock!?!?... Byrdie.. you know 'we' eat those right? 😄They are amazing!! Give it a try!!

tshewman

ya but ya gotta love collagen. :-)

brian_martin2001

Pressure cook, dehydrate, deep fry! Duck feet puffs!